Are you HAPPY with the system?

[rodbradshaw]

Cakadu
Hi long time no hear.

The producer is just paying for a small part of the system, basically the tag and the recording data base. The collection of tag data is done by the slaughter facility and the cost of the trace back is born by CFIA through everyones tax dollar.

If we are not willing to prove that we have safe food whether it be for the neighbour down the road or half way across the world we will not be in business very long. The consumer has a world perspective when it comes to food as we don't eat to live but live to eat.
Rod

[lonewolf]

1. It seems that if we are going to use the stick analogy to push or guide us in a certain direction is a mute point. As a young farmer I find that I am having less and less choices in what I do on my farm. I think the bigger problem is that we are being forced to change to the informed consumers' public perception about what is good and bad for them (just as long as the studies say so.) and, maybe grandpas' old traditional beef herd will be gone and in place a genetically modified clone will become a industry pre-requesite.

2. I noticed that my new tags at my local feed store cost me well over 25% more. Boy, it would sure be nice to receive a pay hike on my calf checks.

3. In the event that a disease is found on my farm, and keeping in mind food safety is a social issue, and one that I too agree with. Lets say the gov. comes in and orders my herd to be incinerated. then lets say they come up with a value for those animals. Let us then say that number is too low. Let us then say these animals are not going any where until my price is made. Now I will grant you that this is not in the best interest of our industry, but it brings me to my first point. If we cannot to some degree control where we want to go and look after our farms first (the gov. surely will not.) then where do we draw the line between survival and social benefit. As this is our job should we not want some sort of job security. I have yet to find a insurance company with affordable coverage and more importantly any policy that I have read contains named perils. These are not as big a concern as those that are not named, hence GOVERNMENT COMPENSATION. (that is too many letters for a beaucrat to call four letters) I think a self-directed livestock program should be avaible such as the crop insurance programs. I feel much better handling my future than leaving it the government but through social demands it makes it next to impossible to accomplish without some sort of government programs. LAter

[cakadu]

Hi Rod. Nice to see you back again. I agree that the food has to be safe, no matter where you send it - whether it be down the road or across the world. There are inherent degrees of safety that should be built into the system.

If the product goes from the farm to the processor to the customer, there are very few traceback steps and most times it is fairly easy to recall the meat. This would be a direct marketing scenario.

The other extreme is the big meat packing plants that ship all over the country and globally. When you think that a vat of hamburger can have up to 100 different animals in it, then how do you do the traceback should a problem occur? How will the tag system work then? At best all I can see them doing with ground meat is to have it go by lot numbers with all the animal trim going into a specific lot recorded. I'm still having problems figuring out how that will work, but maybe the CFIA knows something I don't.

There is also the bigger picture that the producer must take a look at. Sure the tags are only so much, but then doing the paperwork for an on farm food safety program only takes so much time, as will the paperwork for an environmental farm plan and time is money. There are also things to consider like HACCP plans etc. My point is that each one of these only takes a little money out of the producers pocket, but collectively they start to add up and erode what little margins there are - especially in the current situation.

At some point, there is going to have to be some sort of compensation or tax break or environmental credit or something that comes back to the producer because it all starts with him and why should he/we have to pay for all of it?

This is probably one of my bigger concerns with the Ag Policy Framework in that too much of this may be downloaded onto the producer without additional compensation in some form coming to offset that.

Bottom line is that if consumers want some of these things, then they're going to have to be willing to pay for them. Kind of hard to get them to see that when they want CHEAP, safe food that has some sort of convenience factor and a health benefit.

[jmillang]

(this is a personal opinion not as a moderator)

I found this news story in a email list serve I get daily. It illustrates that the entire beef chain is working in food safety. (yes its US based but I know our CDN packers are working in food safety as well.)[URL="http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E53%257E1108750%257E,00.html"]Denver
Post article[/URL]

There was an earlier comment about the chain paying for food safety not the gov't. Yes that is true to an extent, most of the costs of implementing food safety ie tags, or steam pastureization in killing plants , or modified atmostphere packaging have been done with private sector money. Which is far larger than the gov't inspection or regualtion aspect.

I also believe food safety is an issue of public good but we can't get the consumer to pay for it either directly or indirectly (through taxes, they just expect it.

We will not solve this issue here but merely everyone needs to take some responsibility and not point/ blame others in the system. ValuechainFX (and others) made the point of working together, we all need to work together and get past the advisorial roles as we have in the past.

[ValueChainFX]

This is a time in our industry where we have a tremendous opportunity (or not) depending on what you do with it.

There is a strong industry force out there right now that is working to make the system more balanced. I have been to far to many producer meetings where we hear one or two folks that dominate a meeting with negative thoughts. When in fact if we are paying for something we should be looking at ways of making that work to our advantage.

Believe this, that when someone in or out of the industry offers help, before you cut their legs out from under them perhaps we should listen to what is being offered.

Right now their is an effort being develop that is working specifically at rural development and agriculture initiatives, both to meet the needs of today and more important into tomorrow. People are either for that or against it, sitting on a fence when the industry is in trouble is not the best place to be??

My thoughts what are yours?